February 11, 2013

Presumably for two reasons. The first is that the true account of events undercut the president's claim during the campaign that al Qaeda was severely weakened in the aftermath of the killing of Osama bin Laden. The second is that a true account of what happened in Benghazi that night would have revealed that the president and his top national-security advisers did not treat a lethal attack by Islamic terrorists on Americans as a crisis. The commander in chief not only didn't convene a meeting in the Situation Room; he didn't even bother to call his Defense secretary or the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Not a single presidential finger was lifted to help Americans under attack.

This is an embarrassment and a disgrace. Is it too much to hope that President Obama is privately ashamed of his inattention and passivity that night?

I think he is ashamed. Here's what I've been assuming happened: It looked like our people were overwhelmed and doomed, so there was shock, sadness, and acceptance. But then the fight went on for 7 or 8 hours. The White House folk decided there was nothing to do but accept the inevitable, and then they witnessed a valiant fight which they had done nothing to support. It was always too late to help. It was too late after one hour, then too late after 2 hours, then too late after 3 hours.... When were these people going to die already? After that was all over, how do you explain what you did?

It was always too late to help. It was too late after one hour, then too late after 2 hours, then too late after 3 hours....

Graham was attacking from that angle in his questioning. You don't know how long a fight will last at any point in time, which is "A commander can do little wrong, who marches to the sound of the guns." You hope to get there in time to rescue your friends, or recover bodies and get some payback...

I suspect there were troops and pilots all over the Med, suiting up and heading for flight lines, puzzled, when no launch order was given.

What really puts a twist on the story of how Obama ordered our people to be assisted, was the fact that he woke up in the morning and didn't have somebody's ass for not sending aid.

Nonsense. The man is incapable of shame. As a malignant narcissist consumed by his self image nothing can ever be his fault, so what does he have to be ashamed about? All he has is anger leveled at some scapegoat for putting him in an unflattering position.

As I have said before -- this issue does not matter to those who voted for Obama. Americans dying overseas has no bearing on their ability to receive pills and checks from Uncle Sam, or the sense of self-esteem derived from voting for people who give out pills and checks from Uncle Sam.

You are a law professor, not a person who has served in the military or a defense policy wonk or anyone who has an utter fucking clue about military combat or engagement.

I think you mis-understand the professor. I think that what she is saying is that President Obama believed that it was too late to help when it started, because he believed that it would be over in less than an hour. After it had lasted an hour, he believed it was to late, because it would not last another hour. Repeat that decision-making process enough times and eventually it turns out to be true.

I don't think that the professor is stating that, had the President sent help right away, that it would have been too late.

Has the President not demonstrated, in every possible case that required leadership, that he does not possess the necessary instinct needed? During the oil spill did he ask if the government could help? No, he specifically stated that he wanted to know whose ass to kick. Temperamentally unsuited for leadership.

First, sad to say, the charge the New Left liked to level against what they later (when it was to their interest) called the Greatest Generation, that, when in doubt, they always lie, is probably more true of them than their fathers.

Second, as even the Lefty media has told us, foreign policy bores him.

Third, as I said a few days ago, he had a fundraiser in Sin City the following day and needed his beauty sleep (and there's no /sarc tag).

Fourth, as garage has said, this was something for the underlings to handle. He had no clue and his job was being the visionary, anyway; details are for peons, see Obamacare.

That was because the two guys who did most of the fighting for our side weren't even part of the normal Consulate security - they happened by, found some weapons and voluntarily beat off the attackers until the mortars carried the day for the jihadis.

Very likely the White House was wholly ignorant of this, through their craven disinterest and domestic political distractions.

@Jay ... I might be wrong, but I believe Althouse was saying what she thinks the people in the administration were thinking...e.g., in the first hour the presumption was not enough time to respond...as that grew to hours, the administration's professional procrastinator's logic kicks in...e.g., "it is again too late." Repeatedly. Hence..."it is always too late" from the administrations perspective.

I think that was her point, and I am speaking as someone who has dealt with military and civil emergencies...and knows "it is never too late" to try...you can always call off an action until the very last moment. The crime is not having anything in motion to call off...which I have also witnessed, and that probably explains my take on Althouse's words.

As an aside...I would really like to know what exactly instigated the almost simultaneous movement to relieve or replace, after a short tenure, Africa Command's General Carter Ham?

We've been lied to, and various stooges have played their roles...e.g., Petraeus, Dempsey, Gates (early on) et al, including Hillarity Clinton and Susan Rice. I watched General Dempsey testify before Congress...he deserved to be bitch-slapped upside both sides of his little twinkie head. The true "TRADOC-Ranger" was on display...one whose last shot heard fired in anger was 1991....but managed to do an assisted parachute jump in the Army-navy game. Oh, Hooah, hooah, ZZZZzzzzz. Snork.

Sorry, I drifted off, due to my disgust with a military system that puts generals in place to gain a ticket punch and rotates them out...none assigned for the duration or until relieved for incompetence. You wonder why a 1.4 million (+/-) man military has 800+ generals and admirals? Hah! Spit!

It would be a great Monty Python skit: a series of escalating absurd and tragic misfortunes each punctuated by the punch line "You're DOOMED!" complete up with hand washing acceptance and mock mourning.

Also, this rings of the health are debate and Obama's simultaneous condolences and pain killing prescription.

It would be a great Monty Python skit: a series of escalating absurd and tragic misfortunes each punctuated by the punch line "You're DOOMED!" complete up with hand washing acceptance and mock mourning.

Also, this rings of the health are debate and Obama's simultaneous condolences and pain killing prescription.

To assume Obama is ashamed, you would need to see evidence that he has a a record of owning up to his past errors in judgment. Afterall, he has made plenty of errors like shovel ready jobs, the spendulus, Obamacare over-reach, closing Gitmo, etc.

You are a law professor, not a person who has served in the military or a defense policy wonk or anyone who has an utter fucking clue about military combat or engagement.

Yes. Let's take a page from the posting on Dr. Carson yesterday. How DARE he pontificate about taxes, medical governmental policy!!!! Where is his expertise??? How dare he criticize the great Obama. STFU Carson.

Taking that tactic. No one should talk about something that they haven't actual world experience in. Right????

I think you mis-understand the professor. I think that what she is saying is that President Obama believed that it was too late to help when it started, because he believed that it would be over in less than an hour. After it had lasted an hour, he believed it was to late, because it would not last another hour. Repeat that decision-making process enough times and eventually it turns out to be true

This is it. It's a horrifying variant of the waiting-for-a-bus scenario. You need to get somewhere, and you could walk it, but you have a lot of groceries to carry, and you'd rather catch the bus. So you wait at the bus stop. And wait. And wait. At a certain point you really think you ought to have walked in the first place, but by now you're so heavily invested in taking the bus that you just know that the moment you start walking, the bus will show up, and you'll be between stops and unable to catch it.

I don't know about you folks, but that's happened to me many times.

So they learned of the attack, and figured it was a lost cause, since their nearest forces were three hours or so away, so why do anything? Except that it wasn't a lost cause; the consulate was doing its best to defend itself, and the people there were irritatingly alive well after reinforcements might have arrived had they been ordered immediately.

Yea, I also don't see anything in Obama's past that indicates he gets ashamed, as in accepting guilt. He has a chain of total failures when he's been given responsibility, and it's just all smoke under his ascent. His engines run on hubris and sycophancy, and they are strong.

As an aside...I would really like to know what exactly instigated the almost simultaneous movement to relieve or replace, after a short tenure, Africa Command's General Carter Ham?

Good question, that. More than Ham, there was Mattis and others relieved at the same time.

We've been lied to, and various stooges have played their roles...e.g., Petraeus, Dempsey, Gates (early on) et al, including Hillarity Clinton and Susan Rice. I watched General Dempsey testify before Congress...he deserved to be bitch-slapped upside both sides of his little twinkie head. The true "TRADOC-Ranger" was on display...one whose last shot heard fired in anger was 1991....but managed to do an assisted parachute jump in the Army-navy game. Oh, Hooah, hooah, ZZZZzzzzz. Snork.

No fan of Dempsey, but lumping Petraeus in with him seems to be unfair. Word is, he was sabotaged by the Company for shaking up things too much.

Sorry, I drifted off, due to my disgust with a military system that puts generals in place to gain a ticket punch and rotates them out...none assigned for the duration or until relieved for incompetence.

You mean the way Sherman replaced Grant and Sheridan replaced Sherman?

You wonder why a 1.4 million (+/-) man military has 800+ generals and admirals? Hah! Spit!

Another reasonable question. Supposedly, we could save a fair amount of money by eliminating a lot of mid-level HQs.

We could also do it by not building the Marines into a second Army and folding the Air Force (since we're going all UAVs eventually) back into the Army.

What I dont understand is how come nobody high up has come forward... Nobody from the military is resigning in protest over this?

Maybe I'm too naive or something but...

What the Benghazi fiasco is telling me is that maybe we dont need any of it... we dont need to have people spread out all over the world... because if we did then this kind of thing would not have happened.

"I think he is ashamed" No, not given his self-serving actions the very next day. It would of been so easy, and presidential, to clear his fundraising schedule in light the previous day's tragic events. But that wasn't done, was it. He may feel regret maybe. Shame no.

The stupid thing on Obama's part from a political point of view is that Americans will always give the benefit of the doubt for trying. If he had deployed every asset plausibly available and they didn't get there in time, that is simply the way it was meant to be and people will understand that.

To not lift a finger will ripple horribly. No single overseas official or military member will stick their neck out or show a single ounce of initiative.

Over the long term, such an institutional attitude leads to internal rot and incompetance.

Aridog said... @Jay ... I might be wrong, but I believe Althouse was saying what she thinks the people in the administration were thinking...e.g., in the first hour the presumption was not enough time to respond...as that grew to hours, the administration's professional procrastinator's logic kicks in...e.g., "it is again too late." Repeatedly. Hence..."it is always too late" from the administrations perspective.

Fair enough.

But I guess I'm left wondering why Ann accepts this thinking since she has zero expertise in this area?

The Kristol+Wehner piece tells about how we view political incompetence. We tend to look for motives, when sometimes there are none, or few strong ones.

Benghazi? That's a backwater place that could not have been on Obama's front burner on 9/10. Why would he pay attention?

He said a few things, gave a few directions, and went to bed, dreaming about the next day in Vegas. Then when things went sour, he, knowing this could damage his chances at re-election (which he knew was good for the country), lied.

He might just be stupid. Kristol and Wehner try too hard to figure out what was going on in that cafe-au-lait head. It's not that difficult, guys. Our POTUS is a well-meaning fool.

Another possibility is that it would have exposed their operations, including arming terrorists to fight their wars. Similar to what they did in the Americas, where they armed a drug cartel to kill Mexicans and at least one American.

I remember hearing in the weeks after Benghazi that there were high-level military officers who wanted to send aid, and one or two who actually began, on their own authority, to send aid and were ordered to stand down.

If that is true, I want to know who ordered them to stand down. Presumably it was Panetta, acting under order of Obama to take care of it himself.

To my mind, that is the single biggest wrong committed here - not that Obama's people were unprepared for the attack despite warnings, not how they switched stories afterwards, but the fact that Americans were fighting bravely for eight hours while their commanders ACTIVELY PREVENTED help from being sent. They didn't simply say "it's too late to send help, it won't do any good" - they said "stop trying to go help them...leave them to their fate." THAT is the notorious, unforgivable crime here...

Imagine those brave people fighting hour after hour, being pretty certain that the higher-ups were aware of their plight, sure that help must be coming any minute now...any minute...and nothing. Hour after hour of nothing.

Because this was Obama's 3 am call, that came at 5 in the evening, and after being briefed on it, went to bed early for his fund raising trip to the west coast the next day.

The entire Administration lied from Day 1 because the only thing that was important was winning reelection. The narrative was important, and keeping low information voters ignorant about the failures of Obama's leadership was even more important.

What was depressing is that we knew at the time that they were doing it, but the problem is that nothing could be or was being done because of it. Much of the electorate was going to remain ignorant about the facts, as long as the MSM, along with their Comedy Channel fellow travelers, studiously avoided questioning the official narrative - which those at the top knew to be false while the attacks were still going on.

It doesn't seem to make sense, does it? Five months after the fact we still don't have a clear understanding of what happened and why.

So let's speculate. The phone call that night with Netanyahu was what had his full attention. Obama took their feud as a personal challenge and a threat to his reelection. The call didn't go well - Bibi dissed him in the private conversation - so our petulant president got pissed and just shut down for the night. That affected his judgement and led to his terrible decision to concoct a lie to make the Benghazi story go away.

The only thought process I can use to reach this conclusion is that we would be embarassed if we were Obama. But I don't see anything from him pointing to that conclusion, and his referring to "bumps in the road" supports the opposite.

"So the paragraph after "Here's what I've been assuming happened" is all sarcasm now???"

My assumptions relate to how the people in the White House perceived the situation and thought about it, why they did what they did.

Jeez, I didn't know I was so hard to understand. I'm not going to write in a more sledgehammering style. If you won't do me the courtesy of reading my concise writing and thinking about what it means, then I don't care about you as a reader. To come in here and insult me, when you haven't done that for me, identifies you as the kind of reader I don't even want.

Go somewhere else and read something on your level.

Or apologize to me and commit to doing a better job of reading and thinking in the future.

"The only thought process I can use to reach this conclusion is that we would be embarassed if we were Obama."

Yes, this is the reason. I agree that there is no evidence that he is ashamed. In fact,so much of Obama's behavior says the opposite; shameless mischaracterization of his opponents arguments just to name one off the top of my head, that it's difficult to give him the benefit of the doubt. I guess, I just can't imagine not being ashamed.

I would like to know where Obama was and what he was doing, exactly. If he wasn't communicating with Panetta, Dempsey, or Clinton who was he in contact with if anyone? Was he in bed? Was he huddled with his political people in the Oval, with the campaign in Chicago on speaker, dithering and brain-storming a cover story?

There is always a reason to take action, however pointless, if you want to take action.

If they had sent forces then they might have been too late, but at least there would have been a sign that they cared. The admin is well aware of seeming like they care, that is the whole point of the gun control frenzy since the latest mass killing.

The thing is that they always and instinctively wanted to restrict gun rights and they finally had an excuse to take action. They never want to deploy "boots on the ground" and the best reason is never a good enough reason.

Even if we had gotten there late, a message still would have been sent.

The actual message sent, however, is far worse.

So when the admin really had a chance to "do something" it didn't, Obama lied, 4 died, but when he shouldn't "do something" he cares?

BTW - SOTU overview via Confounded Interest:

“Obama previewed his economic growth plan in a speech to House of Representatives Democrats this week, telling them he would stress the importance of education, development of clean energy, and infrastructure.

There were no details on the new initiatives for infrastructure, manufacturing, clean energy and education, elements first reported by the New York Times.”

Isn’t this the same plan from his first term? Clean energy was a costly bust, and he still wants to have government control education and infrastructure spending.

So, more big unions payoffs. More Champagne Socialism for big donors. This is all the President can offer? Statism.

Uhm, hasn’t President Obama and Congress run up the Federal debt enough already?

There were a number of survivors of the September 11 attack in Benghazi. What do they have to say? Or, better, why do they say nothing at all? It is as though they have gone up into the ether. No books. No interviews. No Sunday morning shows. None of the things that could be done to capitalize on their experience or to shed light on what happened. Nothing. No enterprising journalists tracking them down. No Congressmen asking for their testimony. It is as if they might know something that we cannot be told. Something very bad was going down in Benghazi. Very bad.

I happen to think that there is another reason for Obama's failure to do anything. Fear.

We knew that in the hunt for OBL, Obama was given the opportunity multiple times to green light the operation, but turned it down until his hand was basically forced. For 6+ months we had the intel on OBL location, and operations were requested multiple times, but always rejected.

He feared what it would look like if the operation failed.

Then, in the midst of an election year, Obama had many options available to send support to Benghazi, but nothing was done. He once again failed to authorize a risky rescue for fear that it may fail. I would wager that visions of Operation Eagle Claw were forefront in his mind more than anything else.

In a tight re-election fight he was more afraid of having a failed military rescue operation on his hands than a dead ambassador. Failure to lead was then obfuscated but spinning the why of the attack, rather than the failure of support. It was a classic misdirection enabled by the leftist media who were determined to not allow it to be used as an advantage for Romney.

Either way, it is just another card in the deck of Obama's lack of leadership. There will be more examples of this lack of leadership over the next few years.

Jeez, I didn't know I was so hard to understand. I'm not going to write in a more sledgehammering style. If you won't do me the courtesy of reading my concise writing and thinking about what it means, then I don't care about you as a reader. To come in here and insult me, when you haven't done that for me, identifies you as the kind of reader I don't even want.

Go somewhere else and read something on your level.

Or apologize to me and commit to doing a better job of reading and thinking in the future.

Why? He's the guy who replaced McChrystal in Afghanistan, BUT retained McChrystal's ROE's, which with the vaunted Afghan "surge" have contributed to doubling our losses there over 10 years in 3 years...e.g., 2000+ lost in 10, 1000 of them lost in the past 3. Petraeus was/is a "political" general...and, on my point, did he remain in Afghanistan until we were victorious?

Let's see, we lost twice as many men as previously and now are getting shot up by those we train...hell of a "victory." Petraeus goes to the CIA next, boinks his biographer, gets caught and is effectively shut up, even if he has information to provide. In short, he retired, he didn't resign his commission, and as general he could be recalled and face UCMJ issues over adultery if done on duty. Won't happen and he'll keep lips zipped...and so will those who know about it all, they have "careers" too.

Hell, the story of his affair with Paula Broadwell not beginning until he had retired (as if that made a difference?) is nonsense to anyone who has been around military commanders with pretty attached, but unaffiliated, camp followers in their military offices. The famous "grip & grin" photo of the good General and Broadwell screams personal issues, not to mention the ones of him and her on his private military aircraft. Please. Just, please. He's a stooge, served his purpose, got set up perfectly, and didn't know it.

I've related previously my experience with a Major General fucking a subordinate of mine's wife, their divorce, and the follow on disaster.

As stooges go, Gates, stooge #1, began the promotion of stooges with his refusal (under Bush 43) to re-nominate USMC General Peter Pace for a 2nd term as CJCS...instead nominating a Admiral with zero combat experience as CJCS...Navy guy to run two land wars, hell of an idea, eh?

Jeez, I didn't know I was so hard to understand. I'm not going to write in a more sledgehammering style. If you won't do me the courtesy of reading my concise writing and thinking about what it means, then I don't care about you as a reader.

To come in here and insult me, when you haven't done that for me, identifies you as the kind of reader I don't even want.

In defense of Jay, its possible that how the words were phrased allowed for misconstrued meaning. Jay did think about what it meant, and came to a conclusion that it meant something other than what Anne meant. And got pissed off at the conclusion reached.Anne should allow for the fact that her words may not be taken the way she meant them to be taken. It could be bad writing on her part that caused the confusion. Or bad reading.

Reminds me of Putin and his reaction to the "Kursk" submarine disastger:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2000/aug/23/kursk.russia

Putin refused help from the Brits and the Norwegians on the grounds that the sub crew was probably already dead anyway. Don't know if this was because he were more afraid of Russia losing face than losing her crewman (see? they need foreign help to clean up this mess!) or because Volodya just.couldn't.be.bothered.

From that, and other sources, there is some evidence right now that Benghazi was the direct result of a lot of different things coming together that were all pretty much caused by the Administration in general, and the White House in particular.

One of the scarier things to me is that it seems like no one was in the loop, except for the White House. CIA isn't talking to the State Department, nor is it talking to the Pentagon. Much of the State Department is ignoring its Secretary, as she sets a modern record of travel. Rather, they take orders directly from the White House. WH appears to have been running black ops all over the mid-east using DoD assets from Libya, not bothering to tell the CIA, and Ambassador Stevens was at the bottom of the hill at State, with the excrement flowing down towards him, with increasing speed, and not a peep from anyone, ultimately because telling State (and Stevens) would require that everyone come clean about what everyone was up to.

I think that what may have happened is that the President became enamored with covert ops and drone kills, at a time when the CIA was fighting back because they would rather sift data than put boots on the ground (and the Petraeus affair shows why they were so distrusted by the White House). So, with the CIA fighting tooth and nail, they were cut out of the loop, and the White House essentially started running the ops themselves. Much more efficient. Not really rogue, since the operations had Presidential buy-in.

Meanwhile, over at State, the Secretary got her job as a political payoff. She had no real qualifications for the job, rather, she just wanted it. There was never any trust between Obama and Clinton - how could there be? They had been vicious enemies months before. So, Hillary! got the title, and the fancy jet, and promptly made herself scarce. And, foreign policy was made in the White House. But, again, that a lot of stuff that State needed to know, wasn't getting to them, including all that covert stuff mentioned above.

So, what I think that we saw through much of Obama's first term was a very tight ship in the White House, running small parts of the government very aggressively, and the rest of the government being left to its own devices. And, why wouldn't they be happy? They just hit paydirt with most of a trillion dollars of new spending every year for them to play with.

So, the answer to the question of why Benghazi happened and no one appeared to know that it was a terrorist attack, that could have been, and probably was, predicted, may be that no one knew because the White House had cut all lines of communication so that the 98% of the government that they weren't interested in wouldn't get in the way of getting done what they wanted to get done.

Even if we had gotten there late, a message still would have been sent.

The actual message sent, however, is far worse.

Correct. We didn't EVEN try. The message sent to our enemies is bad. The message sent to our own military is even worse. "You are on your own. You are expedient: disposable for political and personal gain. Your life and sacrifice means less than nothing to your 'so called' leaders."

AND when you are no longer in the military, assuming we didn't let you die.....we will do everything we can to take away your benefits earned through your own blood sweat and tears and try to crush your ability to survive afterwards.

How much loyalty and effort can you expect of the rank and file military when they realize that they are nothing less than cannon fodder and pawns on the board to further the power of the political class. Not that it hasn't always been so. Just that it is now blatantly obvious.

From what I understand, Brennan and the WH were running ops throughout Libya with JSOC outside the purview of CIA, State and the Pentagon and that neither Stevens nor Clinton knew about them. The attack on Benghazi was retaliation for targeting an al-Quaeda man with drones.

So they learned of the attack, and figured it was a lost cause, since their nearest forces were three hours or so away, so why do anything? Except that it wasn't a lost cause; the consulate was doing its best to defend itself, and the people there were irritatingly alive well after reinforcements might have arrived had they been ordered immediately

I do agree that that was the reasoning. But clearly what works for waiting for a bus is not sufficient when trying to defend your embassy.Even if the response led to the death of those in the rescue attempt it still should have been attempted. You don't just sit on your hands when your embassy is falling.

Spoken like a true lib. The assumption in the military and among HUMAN BEINGS (with morality) is that someone will TRY to save lives. Only a lib would excuse this behavior...until they are the ones that need saving.

I happen to think that there is another reason for Obama's failure to do anything. Fear.

And I happen to agree with you. Fear is the sponsor of procrastination in crisis.

Obama, or his designated leaders, could have ordered a response to Benghazi, and called it off in the last moments if it was determined, in real time, that no benefit would accrue...e.g., lives already lost.

But...nobody did anything, nothing to call off or stand down...failure was literally pre-ordained.

Small point...some 20+ personnel were rescued by other means...who are they and what do they say?

"During the oil spill did he ask if the government could help? No, he specifically stated that he wanted to know whose ass to kick. Temperamentally unsuited for leadership."

I doubt he has ever read anything by W. Edwards Deming or even knows who he is. He is as unlike Reagan ("There s no limit to what can be accomplished so long as it doesn't matter who gets the credit.") as any president could be.

Let me add that I don't know if that article mentioned in the Mail is accurate in regards to the black ops being run by Delta Force and maybe some other special operators out of Libya.

But, I do think that there is a lot of evidence that the White House was working around a lot of its national security agencies, and, almost assuredly, the Secretary of State.

Why weren't all the people in Libya at the time interviewed? They were, just not by the FBI on a timely and prompt basis. And, I think that a lot of that was probably CYA on the part of the White House. They couldn't prevent the government from ultimately investigating, but seemingly did prevent them from rushing over there while there was still any good physical evidence at the consulate, and maybe could repost some of the government employees and contractors before the FBI showed up. But, others seemed to have been more aggressive, and I think that the story will continue to dribble out.

Or apologize to me and commit to doing a better job of reading and thinking in the future.

Hey genius, you, not me, used the term "sarcasm"

So why don't you do a better job of writing and thinking in the future?

Jay, she's obviously doing a good enough job of writing and thinking to attract the audience she attracts, including you.

You're the only one here who didn't get it. It was screamingly obvious to everyone else. You're the one who went ballistic and started lurching around, babbling like a hysterical ninny about law professors and expertise. You've made an absolute horse's ass of yourself. Why persist?

From what I understand, Brennan and the WH were running ops throughout Libya with JSOC outside the purview of CIA, State and the Pentagon and that neither Stevens nor Clinton knew about them. The attack on Benghazi was retaliation for targeting an al-Quaeda man with drones.

Succinctly put. And, isn't this the same Brennan whose nomination to head the CIA appears to be being held up by Republicans?

Nixon worried about the underlings, even to the point of being concerned about their families. Obama has learned from that experience and does not give a sh*t about underlings, let alone their families. Remember, Hillary was part of the Nixon inquisition, after it was begun by Mark Felt and his two stenographers.

"Sorry, I drifted off, due to my disgust with a military system that puts generals in place to gain a ticket punch and rotates them out...none assigned for the duration or until relieved for incompetence.

You mean the way Sherman replaced Grant and Sheridan replaced Sherman?"

Not a good example. You need to read some Civil War history. Sheridan replaced Stoneman. Sherman, our greatest tactical general of all time, saved Lincoln's re-election by taking Atlanta right before the 1864 election. Grant took over from McClellan, Burnside, Hook, Meade, etc. Sherman won the war. Grant and Sherman were fast friends and complemented each other.

Bruce Hayden ... your last comment here more or less answers my questions from yesterday vis a vis Brennan. You managed to roll up the whole scenario, all the players, while I, over-informed by my personal experience perhaps, tend to focus on those I despise.

My take is that, while it may not technically be "rogue", the jumping chains of command and lines of responsibility is none the less "rogue" in effect. Johnson did it, Nixon did it, Carter did it, etc. ... it is NOT new, and it is never positive.

Why? He's the guy who replaced McChrystal in Afghanistan, BUT retained McChrystal's ROE's, which with the vaunted Afghan "surge" have contributed to doubling our losses there over 10 years in 3 years...e.g., 2000+ lost in 10, 1000 of them lost in the past 3. Petraeus was/is a "political" general...and, on my point, did he remain in Afghanistan until we were victorious?

Nonsense. Who says the ROE are his?

Commandante Zero micromanaged the surge when McChrystal ran the show. No reason to believe things were any different went Petraeus came in.

Let's see, we lost twice as many men as previously and now are getting shot up by those we train...hell of a "victory." Petraeus goes to the CIA next, boinks his biographer, gets caught and is effectively shut up, even if he has information to provide. In short, he retired, he didn't resign his commission, and as general he could be recalled and face UCMJ issues over adultery if done on duty. Won't happen and he'll keep lips zipped...and so will those who know about it all, they have "careers" too.

You're blowing smoke just to have an excuse to rant. Place the blame where it belongs - with a CIC who wants to throw A-stan away as much as he did Iraq.

Barry wants to negotiate with the Tahleebahn.

Barry wants to telegraph our timetable to the bad guys.

Barry is all for arming the crazies.

While I agree the armed forces need an overhaul, the spot to place the blame is all too clear.

If you have a hate on for the brass, say so, but don't play games over who's at fault.

My apologies if skimming the prior comments means that I missed something identical to the following but:

this reminds me of my relationship with the food in my fridge: how old, exactly, are those leftovers? Are they still good to eat? Not sure? Don't really want to make a decision about whether to eat them or toss them? Well, then just let them sit for a couple days longer, until you're sure they're no good, and then toss them!

If you do read that Daily Mail piece, the idea is we knew how bad Benghazi was getting, and Obama's preferred method of attack was special ops. It got bad enough that as one of the Seals said it was like "hornet's nest.'

If true, we were sticking special ops in the hornet's nest long enough that it eventually spilled over and killed 4 Americans, and those Americans likely knew they were in serious danger in Benghazi. Libya, though, is Obama's war, and his whole schtick is no troops. He's the technocratic, anti-invasive, anti-Bush, droning peacemaker, bending America's military power and will towards 'peace.' and a big State at home and international law and courts abroad.

He needed to maintain a light footprint.

Now, special ops works partly for Obama b/c it's militarism lite, (unlike Iraq and Afpak where we're pulling out ground forces but will continue to police the world from behind with militarism lite until....???)Militarism lite prosecutes the war on terror, pivots from the evil Bush neoconservatism, and Obama can hide it well enough to please the anti-war base and line it up with mainstream American exhaustion with foreign adventures and our crappy economy.

But the unrest in Libya has affected Mali, and Algeria (and Algerian generals won't let that happen or die trying).

There are more hornet's nests out there, so will we just keep sticking special ops and drones in Yemen, in Afpak, in Somalia, in Mali, in Libya with the Eurocratic drone force forever?

I think he is ashamed. Here's what I've been assuming happened: It looked like our people were overwhelmed and doomed, so there was shock, sadness, and acceptance. But then the fight went on for 7 or 8 hours. The White House folk decided there was nothing to do but accept the inevitable, and then they witnessed a valiant fight which they had done nothing to support. It was always too late to help. It was too late after one hour, then too late after 2 hours, then too late after 3 hours.... When were these people going to die already? After that was all over, how do you explain what you did?

Um, what?

So in the aftermath they decided to lie and blame it on a video instead. Isn't that just blatant callous cowardice? We have a coward for a president, who is willing to be politically expedient in the name of his legacy and narrative. This is a complete dereliction of his duty and is completely and totally unfit to be a president. I was never an impeachment kind of guy, but I think after all of this I am now.

It wasn't just that "it was too late." You don't reach such a conclusion in this scenario unless you're predisposed to it, wanting it to be too late.

Because the reality is it wasn't too late. And, for numerous reasons, it's never too late. Even, theoretically, if it was too late to save anyone, it was still our diplomatic outpost under siege, and it needed to be secured ASAP.

How many carrier battle groups were offshore? A couple at least. They could've had Marines and at least one SEAL team on site inside of an hour. If they wanted to.

Remember that Clancy novel, 'Clear and Present Danger'? Whitehouse running secret US assets in South America. Things go sideways.President decides to leave them to die rather than risk exposure of the ops.

Commandante Zero micromanaged the surge when McChrystal ran the show. No reason to believe things were any different went Petraeus came in.

In other words, both were stooges.

BTW...McChrystal says the ROE'as are his, he wrote the ROE's and Petraeus reviewed them, with little material change. I presume Obama saw them. No change. 1000 extra troops died...coincidence or not, they are dead.

You seem to want to blame Obama for everything and excuse his stooges...and predecessors.

As for my blowing smoke, okay, I surrender to your wider experience with military brass fucking camp followers.

Garage and Inga said, "Reading right wing talk on Benghazi is like reading cartoons. Sorry, it's not worth a second of real reflection or thought."

Speaking of cartoons, this is conclusion, not argument. Please explain WHY no thought is necessary.

Of course, you're going to have to do some thinking to explain why you don't have to think to know that nothing worth thinking about happened here. But if anybody can think about not having to think in order to know that they don't have to think, it'll be one of the two of you!

Obama is no doubt a fearful man...he fears getting caught and he fears failure. He draws like minded people tight around him, and promotes them. They know that push come to shove, their time under the bus against the curb is always one incident away. That is called being a stooge.

Obama likes clandestine drone strikes, because he can publicize the popular successes and hide the failures or mistakes. He likes an in-house appointed, but unconfirmed, staff deputy, who has no formal position in the chain of command, running black ops directly, with military assets, without CIA or Pentagon interference. He likes that in-house arrangement for the same reason he likes drone strikes. No transparency. None.

Just to be funnin'...do you know anyone, anywhere, who can testify under oath that Osama Bin Laden is actually dead? And buried at sea? Got any tangible evidence that Anwar al-Awlaki is dead and gone?

Running secret shit secretly from those normally charged with running secret shit is good for you!!

garage mahal said... Reading right wing talk on Benghazi is like reading cartoons.

Garage, Inga, and phx have already established a refusal to analyze as their preferred tactic dealing with uncomfortable facts and events. It's truly shocking to see the tactic deployed again. In other news there's gambling at Rick's Cafe. Shocking.

It may have been too late to save the Americans but it's never too late to punish the terrorists while they are still hanging around by killing as many as possible in such savage and remorseless ways as to teach a sobering lesson.

It may have been too late to save the Americans but it's never too late to punish the terrorists while they are still hanging around by killing as many as possible in such savage and remorseless ways as to teach a sobering lesson.

As C in C, the Prez answers to no one re military ops. Still, I find it extremely unsettling that State and the Pentagon would be cut out of policy on a need-to-know basis. In VN up until the mid-60's the American Ambassador basically ran the country and was always the MAN. Everything this guy does reeks of tin-pot despot. We are all Venezuelans now.

This assumes he believed the point of the attack was to kill. I think it possible he/his advisors believed the goal was taking hostages. Their subsequent decisions make much more sense under that presumption.

edutcher, you are pure comedy at times. My remark was directed at your increasing personalization of our conversations. Pretty funny that you think I rant...which I admit, but you think your rambling comments are pure universal truths?

There are a whole lot of smart people here who are far brighter and more accomplished than me...but I am fairly sure you are not one of them. YMMV.

So, let's get down to it (that smoke blowing shit): Do YOU have any experience relating to Generals fucking camp followers or civilian employees?

If so, say so...don't disparage what I said as blowing smoke when I DO have the experience with the affairs of Generals fucking subordinates' wives. That informs my opinion, rightly or wrongly...BUT you seem obsessed with being right, so I said have it it.

But it seems you don't care for people giving you a taste of your own medicine, so you go to the troll defense of playing victim. I did emphasize a few salient points you wanted to overlook, but, like Ann, maybe I need a /sarc tag to let people know what I'm saying.

No single overseas official or military member will stick their neck out or show a single ounce of initiative.

This. Because they won't want to end up abandoned mortar bait like Tyrone Woods...and in the perverse world of unintended consequences that IS the Obama Admin., more overseas Americans are going to get killed anyway.

Tom said...Two thoughts: 1) This is impeachable conduct; 2) Impeachment would only happen if it was a Republican in the WH. Obama slides

=====================Presidents and their Administrations, not being Perfect All-Knowing Gods.....routinely fuck up in a way that costs us in maimed men and corpses.Obama had "4 Dead Heroes!!!", Bush and the Neocons nation-building debacle cost us 45,000 "Hero casualties!!" that made no difference to the Afghan and Iraqi Freedom LOvers - who hated us before we went in, hated us while we were heroically helping "advance them", and will hate us after we leave.

Reagan and the people under him cost America 280 Dead Heros!! in Beruit.

No one was talking about impeaching Reagan for the Muslims figuring out how to turn a whole force of Marines into dead and multilated meat at the cost of only one of their own..

And face it, even if Reagan or Obama was Godlike and made the perfect decision each time ..an intelligent and thinking enemy will still, ALWAYS make us pay a butchers bill if we jump into any war. Or jeopardize what any enemy sees as their vital interests...

Zero tolerance of military casualties or other Americans overseas in harms way is unrealistic and stupid. Rescue is sometimes unrealistic and stupid....or worse, a "Leave no Man/corpse behind!!! rescue is attempted and becomes an American corpse multiplying fiasco.

Where Obama and his people fucked up worse than past bunglers - even with his modest death toll - is in the Obamites despicable and ultimately successful coverup of their bungling. Even more so because the liberal and progressive Jewish media gave Obama the full cover they never gave to Nixon and All The Presidents Men (and Cankles) during the Watergate coverup.

This is the same Bill Kristol that follows the philosophy of Leo Strauss in constructing grandiose lies for American consumption with the goal of creating and maintaining public support for militaristic Imperialism?

The same guy who cheered the lies about Iraq's WMDs? The same guy who gleefully supported the lies about Saddam's support for al-Qaeda? Or this. Or this. Hell, you can google it and get more than a half million results.

Lying is a slippery term for the House of Kristol. His father, Irving Kristol, made explicitly clear that it's about maintaining political order:

“Strauss was an intellectual aristocrat who thought that the truth could make some minds free, but he was convinced that there was an inherent conflict between philosophic truth and political order, and that the popularization and vulgarization of these truths might import unease, turmoil and the release of popular passions hitherto held in check by tradition and religion with utterly unpredictable, but mostly negative, consequences.

There are different kinds of truths for different kinds of people. There are truths appropriate for children; truths that are appropriate for students; truths that are appropriate for educated adults; and truths that are appropriate for highly educated adults, and the notion that there should be one set of truths available to everyone is a modern democratic fallacy. It doesn’t work."

So it seems that Kristol accusing Hillary of lying (which perhaps she did in her dedicated support for political order), is like the Pot calling the Kettle a n*gger.

There is evidence that Obama is ashamed of the course he took and it's the very fact that he's acting the way he is. When you are ashamed of yourself you can behave in one of two ways one, you can make an effort to acknowledge and atone for your mistake or two, you can blame and hide and bluster. If you are powerful enough or protected enough you can send out people to do all that for you. Obams is smart enough to know he's not equal to his position. It must torture him to know it and continue to pretend it doesn't bother him. That's where his anger and hypersensitivity to criticism come from.

It makes absolutely no difference when these people were killed, be it the first hour or the seventh. You get your nearest people in there as fast as you can and retrieve their bodies. What The Fuck? I'm glad that I served when I did. This whole thing is nothing but a clusterfuck. Obama and Hillary and the rest of them are nothing but small insignificant people. Unfortunately, they are running the show. What a fucking shame.

I think he is ashamed. [??? On what basis would you write that?] Here's what I've been assuming happened: It looked like our people were overwhelmed and doomed, so there was shock, sadness, and acceptance. [What evidence is there of that? ABSOLUTELY NONE. Nice attempt at fiction though. Sounds like a West Wing script.] But then the fight went on for 7 or 8 hours. The White House folk ["folk"? nice touch. Not. These are professionals elected and appointed to defend Americans.] decided [Who decided? When? Was there a meeting? Who was in attendance? A phone call? Not according to Panetta. Who? Who? When?] there was nothing to do but accept the inevitable, and then they witnessed a valiant fight which they had done nothing to support. It was always too late to help. {BS] It was too late after one hour, then too late after 2 hours, then too late after 3 hours.... [BS. BS. and more BS] When were these people going to die already? After that was all over, how do you explain what you did? [You pevaricate about some crappy youtube video and the coverup becomes the extenuating circumstances in an impeachment?]

This is total bullshit.

But more inmportantly, this is despicable.

And Althouse finds it reasonable or acceptable? Did she forget the /s? But perhaps Athouse is using some kind of ploy here. Too cloying. "When were these people going to die already" Peopl who think that way have no shame to feel.

Not only do we have a completely inept man in the office of POTUS, we have the administration surrounding him who are completely gutless and don't have the balls to call him up and say "Damnit Mr. President DO THE RIGHT THING. Get your ass over here and meet with us so we can get those people out of there."

It occurs to me that except for the incredible bravery and actions of Tyrone Woods and Glen Dougherty all the Americans in the Annex might have been lost. Obama is one lucky SOB.

Beneath those gruff, autocratic, unreformed, tribal, theocratic dictatorships are millions of...increasingly marginalized and heavily-armed people whose sociopolitical construct can be summarized as either "Tribes with Flags" or "Quarrels with Borders"

Regarding Julius Reincarnate's deflection: Well, I happen to agree with Kristol's account and with Althouse's timeline. So you just called me a liar too by inference. Congratulations! I expected no less from you.

I wonder if the fear of responding militarily was because of clandestine Intellgence (but not CIA) operations that would either be embarrassing or part of a larger operation. We had to believe that we could respond militarily. Hell, the folks on the ground lasted 6 hours.

One day Obama will be out office and I hope we don't let this die. I've always believed that if Obama believed the Bush administration tortured, then a legal action should have been brought. You can't say that about the former president without taking legal actions (failure to act is a war crime too). So same for Obama - someday he won't be president. And we need to do the right thing and hold him accountable.

Put me down as seeing the Professor laying out one of a possible several chains-of-events to determine how a decision or end-state was reached. I see it as explanatory as opposed to explain-away-atory or exculpatory.

Gives seasoned litigators like Sen's Graham and Cruz promising lines of questioning to pursue once hearings reconvene. I can't wait.

Levi Starks said...For the people who lost their lives in Benghazi It was "too late" the day after Obama won his first term as president. They just didn't know it.

How many will die through presidential negligence or design during the next 4 years?

=================How many will die? The American public now believes the Republicans are the party of the Neocons, and endless wars of adventure.And the Democrats keep us out of war.So the answer in their minds, is a whole lot less will die than if McCain or Romney was looking for a New Noble Freedom Lover group that we could spend 100s of billions and sacrifice thousands of Americans for..

This belief is particularly strong with women and may be even more important than the repellent Right to Lifers - in explaining why women went 56-44 for Obama while Romney carried a slight 52% plurality of men.

And they figure that "4 Dead Heroes!!" (and throw in a Hero Border agent) would be a hell of a lot less than the Dead Hero!!! toll if McCain was President the last 4 years.

There is evidence that Obama is ashamed of the course he took and it's the very fact that he's acting the way he is. When you are ashamed of yourself you can behave in one of two ways one, you can make an effort to acknowledge and atone for your mistake or two, you can blame and hide and bluster. If you are powerful enough or protected enough you can send out people to do all that for you. Obams is smart enough to know he's not equal to his position. It must torture him to know it and continue to pretend it doesn't bother him. That's where his anger and hypersensitivity to criticism come from.

I do not believe for one second that Obama knows or understands what shame is.

Levi Starks said... For the people who lost their lives in Benghazi It was "too late" the day after Obama won his first term as president. They just didn't know it.

How many will die through presidential negligence or design during the next 4 years?

================= How many will die? The American public now believes the Republicans are the party of the Neocons, and endless wars of adventure. And the Democrats keep us out of war. So the answer in their minds, is a whole lot less will die than if McCain or Romney was looking for a New Noble Freedom Lover group that we could spend 100s of billions and sacrifice thousands of Americans for..

This belief is particularly strong with women and may be even more important than the repellent Right to Lifers - in explaining why women went 56-44 for Obama while Romney carried a slight 52% plurality of men.

And they figure that "4 Dead Heroes!!" (and throw in a Hero Border agent) would be a hell of a lot less than the Dead Hero!!! toll if McCain was President the last 4 years.

That is over-analysis considering the target audience he was trying to keep into the fold. They didn't know, nor did they care even if they did know. But hey, voting for the rockstar has all the perks that come with that vote. Or so they thought. Hillary really did sort of define her and Obama's tenure in saying, "What difference, at this point, does it make?" and that's the kind of leadership from behind we've all been subjected too.

Better to say your sorry after you knowingly fucked up. Shame require humility, none of these people have either.

edutcher ... your assertion is bunk, again. I'd really like to quit this ...but egregious error is just too much: Why do you do this? Just because either of us says it doesn't make it so....unless there's some corroboration. Here's mine:

President Barack Obama announced Tuesday a surge of 30,000 troops to Afghanistan ...[snip]... Gen. McChrystal had requested more than 40,000 reinforcements. While the Obama administration is hoping to get more than 5,000 additional troops [ISAF] from North Atlantic Treaty Organization allies, which would edge closer to Gen. McChrystal's total ...

Excerpt: Gen. Stanley McChrystal wanted to ask President Obama for 50,000 more troops for Afghanistan on top of the 68,000 already stationed there, but he was convinced to lower the request to 40,000, reports CBS News White House correspondent Chip Reid.

Sources tell Reid that McChrystal, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, considers the lower number to be a firm bottom line McChrystal believes anything short of 40,000 increases the risk of failure, Reid reports.

Sarcasm is harder if you don't know the writer so wonder what kind of context the writer is presenting. Anyone who comes here often would understand Ann's sarcasm. I assume that Jay is a newbie. Welcome to the newbie.

Benghazi's not worth a moment's thought to her...now that her daughter is back in the US. But when she might have been in harm's way? Oh, that was a good enough reason to revise the 1st amendment. Good stuff.

You and garage have sunk lower than I ever would've thought w/ this "Nah-nah-I-can't-hear-you" routine.

Look, nobody cares, except those in political circles who want to score political points.

Your average Joe gives no shit.

Besides, four Americans dead? So what! Isn't that about the average number of innocent civilians we kill every day in our many war adventures?

The fact is that Obama and Hillary have their fingers on the pulse of our country. And there is no increased heartbeat, no sign of worry, over four bureaucrats who knew they were going into a war zone anyway.

Maybe if we Americans had not become inoculated to the murder of small groups of innocent people all over the Muslim world... maybe then we might care.

You obscure and lie. Your create an "ongoing investigation" as an excuse to clam up. You arrest some unlucky filmmaker and try to make that the issue. You create all sorts of distractions. You viciously attack those who are raising questions. You sacrifice your UN Ambassador. You silence the head of the CIA by putting in fear of losing his job and reputation. You feed disinformation to the supine national press corpse.